4.14.2008 - 09:00am ET

(CSRwire) CAMBRIDGE, MA - April 14, 2008 - cMarket, the leader in online auction fundraising for nonprofit organizations, today announced a record 4,000 online auctions have run on the platform since the company's inception in 2003, raising over $40 million for meaningful causes as diverse as feeding the hungry, funding cancer research and supplying school textbooks. Just over 50 percent of these auctions have occurred in the last 12 months. Now entering the peak spring fundraising season, thousands of schools and nonprofit organizations are utilizing online auctions to shore up critical fundraising efforts, with many projecting to out-raise last year's take.

Often reliant on governmental and philanthropic assistance for operational budgets, schools and nonprofit fundraisers are acutely aware of the current economic downturn and are looking for innovative ways to reach more donors to raise the necessary support. Online fundraising auctions enable NPOs to engage a new worldwide community of cause-minded bidders, increase revenue and reduce administrative costs by opening their silent auctions to the Web marketplace.

"This is a significant milestone not only for the company, but for those organizations that have raised such a substantial amount of funding through this rather new venue," said Jon Carson, CEO of cMarket. "It was a year ago that we announced our 2,000th auction and $20 million raised for good causes. The doubling of online fundraising auctions in a relatively short time proves the web is infinitely more efficient and effective than the traditional silent auction alone. The current fundraising auction leaves a non-trivial amount of money on the table. Leveraging the internet enables causes to capture those dollars. Automation empowers NPOs to do more with fewer resources, enabling them to reap larger rewards with a sophisticated, yet user-friendly online auction system."

The cMarket auction network consists of the easy to build auction homepage and online catalog, robust email tools and templates, access to cMarket Place virtual merchandise mart, unlimited online training and support from cMarket's auction experts, auction hosting and secure transaction processing, complete tracking and intelligent reporting, and opt-in to BiddingForGood.com to attract additional buyers.

cMarket's portal to individual auctions, BiddingForGood.com, is also surging ahead, surpassing 77,000 cause-minded members this month who on average generate $2,600 of winning bid revenue for cMarket clients. This dynamic virtual shopping center offers bidders a wide range of items, including dining, travel, sporting tickets and memorabilia, jewelry, home products and more, often at bargain prices. During the active spring auction season, bidders can expect to find a record 17,000 items available whenever they go online.

"Over the past two years, the New England Aquarium has successfully held three online auctions with cMarket. Two large, annual auctions netted more than $100,000 in revenue, which exceeded our expectations," said Holli Daley, Special Events Coordinator at the Boston-based aquarium. "In January of 2008, an anonymous donor gave the aquarium two tickets for the Super Bowl. We turned to cMarket to run a one day online auction, and within a few hours they sold at the 'buy-now' price of $8,000. By posting these tickets to the BiddingForGood market, we were able to generate bids from a national audience which ultimately increased the revenue that we received. Online auctions have been an effective fundraising tool for the New England Aquarium as they have enabled us to reach additional donors and to attract more support for our organization."

Clients such as the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, United Way, National PTA, and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, as well as hundreds of schools are regular auction users. Data from the four thousand auctions show the following cause groups availing themselves of online auctions:

Education: K-12 32%
Arts, Culture and Humanities 14%
Healthcare: 11%
Human Services 10%
All others (Media, Community Improvement, Higher Education, Faith, Animal welfare, etc) 33%

For members of the media interested in more information on cMarket and BiddingForGood, contact Helen Stefan at (617) 252-6417 or hstefan@cmarket.com

About cMarket

cMarket is the leading online auction platform solely for organizations engaged in fundraising for nonprofit causes. With more than 3,000 customers, online auctions powered by cMarket have generated measurable successes and tens of millions of dollars by allowing organizations, both large and small, to better optimize their auction fundraising model and at the same time, build mission awareness and heightened caring for important causes.

cMarket services national nonprofit organizations such as the United Way, Muscular Dystrophy Association, JCC Association, Junior Achievement, National PTA, and hundreds of local schools, among others. cMarket also works with companies including Ford, Deloitte & Touche, UGG Australia, Kimberly-Clark and General Electric to raise funds for their nonprofit causes.

You can experience cMarket at www.BiddingForGood.com, its consumer website that aggregates all the company's auction clients under one powerful umbrella for thousands of cause-minded bidders.

cMarket has headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. For more information, visit www.cmarket.com.

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